Capital Outlay Committee - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone. This is a Capital Outlay Committee meeting dated July the 2nd, 2026. We're in conference room number one at 4 p.m. We have a quorum here of three, so we can have our meeting. We've taken a roll call, and so we've got that done. We need a motion to approve the agenda.

Motion to approve. Second.

Second. Motion to approve and second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Approved. We all read the minutes from last meeting. Thank you, by the way. You're welcome. I need a motion to approve the minutes from the last meeting.

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes.

Second. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion on it? Good job, by the way.

Thank you.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion approved. Public comments. Okay. Is it Laura? Yes, it's Laura. You want to go ahead and talk to us now?

Oh, sure. You need to come here, please.

Yeah, come up to the... Hey, how are you?

Hey, sorry, I'm Laura Hatmaker from Coffee County Pride in Tallahoma PFLAG. We're having one of our events which we've had several in the last two to three years at the administrative plaza you know just for meetings friends givings holiday parties that type of thing we're having a since we've had two years with our non-profit we're having a craft fair a celebration for our non-profit where we're going to be um charging you know just a small fee three to five dollars And so we've kind of already put on their tentative reserve the date in October for this event. The only thing we were going to ask for, because we've already asked all the questions and gotten the answers to the limit of food trucks, the limit of tents, that type of thing, is I just wanted to know if we could possibly have temporary fencing, not anything that goes in the ground, you know, just like where you have Fourth of July or, you know, church picnics, that type of thing, the little barrier fencings that we would

Almost like the bike rack fencing kind of thing.

Yes, like bike racks. And I'm so sorry. It was late notice and the library's not open. So I have some little cartoon mock-ups for you if you want to see. It would just be light barrier fencing only because if we're using the parking lot. Since we are going to have vendors and tents on one side and family and kid activities, we want to make sure just to allocate and have some of our volunteers say, this is the side for parking and this is the side where kids and families would be. So whether we're not going to be blocking anyone coming in, driving in or out, or blocking any emergency personnel that might be coming in, we just want to... make a barrier there for the safety of the people that would be attending, you know, for the people that are coming in and out of the event, so to speak, if that's able to be done. If anybody just wants to see it, we kind of do the parking on the left, the events and tents on the right, so not blocking any road, just kind of putting something by the sidewalk to protect our vendors, because while we have two food trucks, our other vendors will just be in tents, that type of things, and we'll have outdoor kids activities, and water activities, we just wanna make sure and keep a visible barrier as people are coming and going, that type of thing. And we would be paying for that if we're allowed to do so. Sorry.

So access is okay going through at any place?

Yes, our access will be going through at any place. We would kind of just be putting a couple up almost in this left side when you pull in, we would just put a barrier or two up and have some of our volunteers directing people to go parking to the left and they can't drive any vehicles to the right so the only way the only place we would actually have access limited for vehicles is a wall along where we would have our vendor tents and our kids activities because we don't want anybody driving in there but they're really lightweight there's about 20 of us in the group and we'll have volunteers that day so if anybody needed emergency personnel you know they only weigh about 10 to 20 pounds we could pick them up out of the way really quick but Just wanted to make sure that was okay with you guys.

What date did you say?

Oh, my goodness. Let me have my phone. It's, I believe, October. That's October 17th, which is a Saturday. Okay.

And these will be taken down the same day?

Yes, yes, absolutely, same day. And we have already preparation to do our own trash cleanup, you know, that type of thing, volunteers that are going to be helping us set up and tear down. So we'd be taking those down the same day, also because we'll have table and chair rentals for some of our face painting activities, whatnot, and we'll be getting those all cleared up and taken out the same day.

Are you renting the community room? Yes.

Okay. Mayor, you want to chime in for me? Yeah, I think we need to look back. You are charging admission?

Yes, it's like a $3 to $5 fee. We've had a couple of board meetings on it, but it's not going to be more than a $5 fee because we're a nonprofit as well, so it's like a fundraiser.

We had an issue a few years ago with this flea market thing where we had all those people set up out there with their table set up and we we got into a liability issue that I feel like this this I would think that this is not going to be a formal request it was on the agenda tonight I would really like for our county attorney to look into this and the The barrier is not to separate the payers from the non-payers. This is a public property. The Coffee County Administrative Plaza is publicly owned. We cannot restrict admission anywhere on it because it's publicly owned.

Yeah, I can talk to the board about that. I think the only reason why we wanted the barrier and security and the small fee, although it is a small fee, is because we do get a lot of hate in the community. So while anybody would be welcome, that's the way we would, with that small fee, to make sure Only people that are friendly most likely would come. If people want to come and be hateful, they wouldn't just walk in if they have to pay, you know, $3 to $5. Because we are PFLAG, part of, you know, it's like an LGBTQ support outreach group that's nationwide, and we have a chapter here. in Tallahoma, and then the Coffee County Pride, which is also a second nonprofit. So like even yesterday, we get a lot of death threats, things like that. So typically when we have our events, we, you know, in the past when we had our barbecues and things, even at the Tallahoma Parks at Fraser McEwen, we would insure our events, even if it's kid-friendly, just burgers, people bring in their families. We hire like our own security typically when we have events like that. other places when we have our events on the square at the event center here in Manchester. We either hire our own security for those events Or we see if lots of times, about six months out of the last ten months, we've had a Manchester police officer that's kind of been our security for us. You know, we pay a fee for that. So we definitely want to have it, and I would not mind taking it back to the board if you think that there shouldn't be a fee or if everybody should be allowed. In this, we are kind of trying to restrict, even with a small fee, just that people wouldn't come that want to do us harm because we were getting death threats even yesterday just because we were at the farmer's market. So typically we ensure our events, we hire security, and we want to make sure if people are bringing their children and their families and their grandparents. My own grandmother comes and she's in a wheelchair. We just want to make sure that it's not going to be people that are going to harm us and that's one of the reasons why we chose this location because it is like a municipal property so it's not like they would be able to have the opportunity to do as much harm or be as hateful like in a public park because here it is an official official place even if we're paying the fee and we're renting it do you know what I mean I don't know that that would have a whole lot of bearing on I mean I'm hearing discrimination yeah I get that.

Either way. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, I see what you're saying. We want to limit who can come onto this property, basically. I really think this is something for our attorney. Me too. Yeah, we can look at it for sure. I really do.

And I hope you guys can work with us because we still want to do it. So if we have to make some adjustments. Let me ask you this. Yeah.

Have you approached Coffee County Fair Board?

No, we haven't approached that.

That is a private 501c group.

Okay.

If they say you come in there and nobody else does, I think they would have the right to do it.

Okay.

Because that's not a – it's a standalone entity. I got you. It's not part of Coffee County government. I actually think that would probably get you where you would like to be. Yeah. You would be gated, fenced, and I actually think that would be – the appropriate place for it.

We can look into that. I thought they had a minute. See, we're very small, so lots of times we don't meet requirements. I don't think they have a minimum.

I think they've got a rental just like our community room. Oh, okay, gotcha.

Because that would be like our cookouts typically were our biggest things.

Because they hold the gun shows there and things like that in that building. So I think they ran it.

Our biggest things were 100, and typically our things are 20 to 50 people. But we can look into that. Would it still be okay as I pursue that that we still ask these things? Because I'd like to make some adjustments.

Right now we have a little time. Sure, sure. That's why I wanted you to come on in.

All right.

got one more question you said that you checked into the number of food trucks and stuff like that who did you check oh when we were actually asking those questions to reserve the date and rent the administrative Plaza we asked would we have access to use the parking lot and then would we have is there a limit to food trucks do we have that number in our I had not heard of that. I don't think we did. We were told two food trucks, but then less than like 20 tents, which is fine because we were just going to have face painting.

It didn't come from this committee? No. I got you.

Oh, okay. Well, whoever we called, yeah, I got you. Okay. All right. Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate it.

Thank you. So make sure you stay in touch with us on the next meeting. Okay. Do you have a card?

I wanna have something for the official inquiry to our attorney. The name of the organization. Sure, sure. And one other thing, there would be, I think we require maybe a liability insurance policy for this. You guys, you've got that?

Got you, okay.

Okay, thanks.

Okay. So no one else signed up to speak, and I've seen the public comment. So let me go ahead and do, we're going into old business number 6A, which is an update on the health department facility.

They are open, finally.

As of yesterday, they opened. they're still working out kinks and also contractors still working on punch list items and things that they haven't finished on the inside of the building and outside they had they received their letter again today from josh thompson with scott st john engineering or st john engineering says scott but anyway um So they've been on notice right now that they need to get their things finished up. And that's where that's at right now.

What was the contract completion date?

Contract completion date for the main building was June the 5th.

June 5th?

Yes. That was in the contract documents. They've been provided with that. They also have a letter right now stating the date that they finished, which was... June the 22nd and that's when we got occupancy and they received a notice of substantial completion I think is what is on that date so that's approximately 17 days past the date of completion and we are discussing some of those options with them right now too and we'll bring that up at another day so Besides that, I think everything is running fairly smoothly. I talked to Araceli there quite a bit. I'm trying to leave her alone today because I know they're trying to finish up. I do not know when they're going to have everything completely out of the old building. She's going to give me when she thinks she'll have totally it cleaned out so we can turn it over to the committee to put it up for sale.

Anybody got any questions on it?

We have an opening ribbon cutting next.

The ribbon cutting is June 9th.

At 10 o'clock.

July 9th. How?

July.

July, sorry. July. Thank you.

July the 9th at 10 o'clock. I just wrote the word June down. So if you can come, I hope everybody comes out for it because it's an exciting time for our county right now. That's that update on that. Animal shelter. or control facility. It is complete, and then we have our fence up now that covers up, kind of blinds the HVAC system, which looks really good, I think, with what I've seen so far. Mayor and Craig are working on a sign that's gonna mount on that fence, and I think they're gonna work out a design for that. We know what we're going to put on it, so that's pretty easy. And I think you're working on emblem with somebody. Is that correct? Yeah, we're talking about redoing a logo altogether. Okay. Well, while we're on the animal shelter, Craig, I want you to go ahead, if you don't mind, come up and talk to us because Craig would like to talk to us about a fence around a pad.

Yeah, we'd like to. Out front, there's a pad. concrete pad we'd like to fence in around it make another play area basically money-wise we should have enough in donations to to cover basically just want an approval to I guess which path there's several out there so if you're in the street looking at the front of the building be the one to the left it's the best water drain off on the whole place okay so that's that's why I chose it Like I said, money's there. Basically, it needs to be three bids on something like that. Is that how it works?

How much are you expecting it to be?

I probably figured it might be $4,000 or $5,000.

Yeah, it'd be three quotes.

As long as it's under $5,000, you don't have to have three quotes. If it's under $5,000, you don't have to have three quotes?

Okay. I've looked at it. I've met with Craig out there. I know what he's wanting to do, and we've talked about that. at pad about putting a shelter over at some point too um at uh but yeah i i i'm fine with what he's wanting to try to do my biggest thing i'm seeing out there craig is when we have the gate shut people come pull in there and they turn around and they're driving off the asphalt into the grass and the grass and mud and dirt and then they then they go out and there's There our driveway is.

Do we have any, are we looking at maybe possibly putting up some bollards or something down the driveway?

I was not, but I wouldn't put up bollards. I would get some big old rocks on and put down there.

I mean, we could. We could. We could put some decorative rock out there.

I'm wondering also, when you first turn in the property, there's the concrete slab on the right. Yeah. Then there's the drainage ditch right there. There's a gap up. we could put maybe some gravel in there and mark that as a turnaround for, cause that's what's happening.

People are coming up there and they see, Oh, it's either the gates closed and they can't get in or they, and are they turned in the wrong place? And now they're, and I mean, it's not just cars. There's a dually went in there here lately.

Yeah.

So yeah, it's causing a lot of work and it's causing us to have to clean the driveway again and every deal holes and fill holes. And we've already filled holes already again. So, um, What Craig's asking for is permission from us if he can do that, and we'd have to have a motion for him to be able to do that fence.

I'll make a motion for you to be able to do the fence if he can find a bid under $5,000 so we don't have to do three bids.

Second. Motion and seconded. Any more discussion on it?

Yeah, I want to ask, are you talking about the fence would be right at the perimeter of the concrete or out beyond it, leave some grass?

I would just encapsulate the, yeah, it would be bigger than the pad, but I just want to take it in. Okay.

He's going to come off of the existing fence that we have on the front and come out and then encapsulate that pad and then come back to the new fence.

Okay, okay.

So that way he has some grass area and the concrete.

With the concrete, like we have a big picnic table has seats all around it with an umbrella. I mean, the pad to me, that's somewhere we could sit something like that or be in the shade.

That's what he's talking about.

I would like to extend my appreciation to Benton Bartlett, Highway Department, when Craig brought this turnaround mess to my attention. I went down there to the highway department looking for some sort of temporary barrier. So we came up with the idea with those orange cones. So now Craig and his crew, when they show up for work, they just separate the cones in the middle so they can come and go. And then they put the cones back. And so far, I think nobody's run over the cones. No, they haven't. So I think that's working right now, but that's a temporary fix. Right, right. And we got the highway department is going to widen that road, so we still don't know what that's going to look like on our property when 41 Highway gets widened. So we don't want to spend a lot of money out there next to the road. I mean, just a pipe gate next to the road would be a great thing, but we don't know exactly where to put it. I wouldn't think right now, but...

Yeah, right now you can't even get it out any further than what the water meter and the backflow preventer is right now because that's how far they could literally come up to that point right there. If you look at the pole line that they put down there, the new poles, that's pretty well going to be their limit as far as this side on our side.

Okay.

We could ask them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You want to check with Benton, or do you want me to? You can ask Benton. Go ahead.

Probably need a skid steer out there, maybe cut some of that topsoil down first. But I think every concrete slab out there got a potential use of some sort.

We're talking about that first one on the right right there where we're talking about where there's gravel at. They could turn around to the right.

Yes, as soon as you pass it, there's a pretty good gap between it and the drainage ditch that would be the angle and everything would be ideal.

That's not going to fix the problem.

No, it's not.

No. Somebody's still going to pull in the yard. I promise.

And we don't want to make it. You're talking about stone or something. We don't want to make it where it's hard on our mowing crew, the people that go out there and mow the yard. It's hard enough right now out there. Because we've got a lot of rock mixed in with it.

Okay. We've got a motion made and a second. Any more discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion approved. Thank you, sir. Is everything going okay on it, by the way?

Yeah, everything's good.

It's going good. For the viewing public, what was the contract completion date on that structure?

Aaron, do you remember? He's throwing a curveball at me. I would have had that now. Let's put it this way. On the contract date, they were 128 days past the contract date, and we are in discussions with them about that right now. Four months. Correct. They were supposed to be done January the 5th. Does that sound right? Yep, I think that's correct. If I'm not mistaken, Mayor, it was January the 5th. I may have to look at my other book, but we do know that they were 128.

It's safe to say it's way beyond the contracted completion date. That's correct.

And the ribbon cutting is Saturday?

Ribbon cutting on the animal control is Saturday, July the 11th at 11 o'clock.

And I would like to, I've thrown out the little cliche, dogs with dogs. Do y'all have any ideas on who could, like, bring a grill, cook hot dogs, and we need maybe somebody to donate the hot dogs? Anybody got any ideas, donate the buns and the condiments? Craig, have you got any ideas for that? I feel like it being on a Saturday morning, we're going to have a pretty good crowd there. There are going to be kids. If you would, I think the public would enjoy that. And if we need donations, I'll reach out and get cash donations. The main thing is getting the materials and the grill and what have you. But I think that's going to be a big day. I really do. be kids there and everything, I hope so. And we got things about parking.

Is it half price adoptions?

Get a dog and you have a dog.

That's the only stipulation of the free hot dogs that come with an action.

Come with a dog. What about parking? What do you think we can do for parking?

Well, there's plenty of parking in the back.

Yeah, the back is, we can make it work.

So if you're coming there for the ribbon cutting, yeah, it's pretty solid. Yeah, we've got a pretty good pad in the back. We just have to work it out.

If we have to, we can line around the building and just, when everybody's done, just fish them out the other side.

I don't think that would be an issue.

Okay.

I hope it is, but yeah.

All right. Anything else? I'll work on the grill. Let's see about something. Maybe. Let's go to 6C, which is updated on Copper County Manchester Library. Rick, I'm going to turn that over to you, sir.

So we had our post remediation verification test completed on June 24th, and it uh... past so now we have the uh... the library is getting ready staff is getting ready to reopen library which i believe will be monday i'm not that's what i heard i believe it's correct so here's a copy of the report because i'm sure there will be people saying that there's no report uh... And it was done by the same company that originally had failed us. So after several months, unfortunately, of going back and forth with them, we finally were able to get it passed.

Share with us how many companies tested the library.

total of two different companies tested the library. The original company that failed us, I will say, has a much more stringent passing test. There is an air quality test that was done by a different company. We actually passed that before the final cleaning was done. So it's not... I mean, I really don't even really want to speak on this because I've already gotten murdered in all the social media, but all I can say is that the third-party company that was brought in to test the library originally before the cleaning was done it passed okay then we started the cleaning the cleanup did all the cleanup that company came back again did another air quality test obviously because it passed before it obviously it passed again this company that failed us they came in and did not pass us. But like I said, they have much stronger guidelines to pass. My original statement to this board and to the public was I wanted it to be passed by the company that failed us. So me and my guys and Terry and several other companies that I brought in, we worked to get that done, passing tests by that company. That way there's no doubt

ethic it is ready to go so I'll leave it at that discussion well I'll tell you I know Rick and his bunch worked a lot of hours on it to get it cleaned and I appreciate a bit of it and he's right we had we kept the company that was the hardest to pass to pass this this test, so I feel like I don't have any problems with the building at all right now. Our biggest problem with the building right now is we're gonna have to do something with the roof, and that's gonna have to be done very soon. I'm gonna be talking with St. John Engineering about getting some specs wrote up for it and get it replaced because it's it has issues right now and we don't want water going in the building anymore so keep that down that's all I have on that one do you have anything on the Tallahoma library when it's bidding we haven't moved on that one either okay I don't know that one either. That should be coming out pretty soon. That's all the old business have. New businesses, we're ready to report from you.

I just have the youth services at the Justice Center. They had some money left over in their budget, and they asked if they could replace the carpet in their office with the vinyl plank flooring that we've kind of been installing in some of the other offices. They're basically just asking for permission to do that. They're paying for it themselves. So there's, and then we can add these together, do a separate, however you want to do them. The election commission in the actual room that they vote in, the carpet is very, very bad and we've tried cleaning it. We just can't, we can't get it clean. So he's asked to kind of the same thing where we've replaced the carpet with the vinyl flooring that they've installed in their lobby area. It's much more durable, easier to clean and easier to keep clean. So.

Is that going to be taken out of their budget? Are they?

No, I'm paying for that. I have it in my budget to do it. Obviously, we've been working on this for a long time. It's just on the back burner with everything going on. I have it in my budget. It's a very small cost to do that.

Have you started down at the far end yet? On the wall?

No. Okay. Because that's the money to do that. I did the construction part of it in my budget, and then, of course, it was just July 1st. And he has the money for everything else in his budget, and that just got approved. Well, I plan on starting it hopefully in about two weeks. We should be able to. And we're trying to hit the middle of their dead zone where I can go in there and do it and not disrupt anything. and have it done before their busy time. So hoping for the best on that.

So we need a motion to approve both of those. Is that just two of them? Yes. Those two places? Yes.

I'll make that motion.

Motion made.

I'll second it.

We have a second. Any more discussion on it? I'm glad you're going to vinyl plank flooring on them, by the way. Is it glue? They're doing glue down there. Yeah, it's glue down there.

And then the only other thing I have is basically just the old courthouse lights. Let them vote on that. Let's get this voted on.

Okay, sorry. Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion approved. Go ahead and do those two. Now you can go ahead.

Just the old courthouse lights. I know we've been working on this project forever, but finally got it completed. Okay. The software and the controller and stuff, it's very complicated. It's like writing code. And we spent about seven hours on it today, writing it for the Fourth of July celebration coming up. So just if you go by the old courthouse this weekend. Just take a look at it.

Is it going to be red, white, and blue?

It's going to be red, white, and blue. That's all you've got to do. Hopefully, we'll be there tonight. Green and yellow. Yeah, we'll be there tonight, probably at dark, and we'll probably be there for a couple more hours finishing it up. But hopefully by this weekend, it'll be red, white, and blue for the 4th of July. So just take a look at it.

That's all I have.

Thank you, Rick. Now it has to work, right? I talked about it. It has to work now.

We're going to keep the location on, as far as Justice Center discussion, we're going to talk about it. We're going to postpone that part of it until next month. I'm still working on some stuff with that. And if that's all the new business, do you have anything else? Do you have anything? No. If there's not any more new business, we need a motion for it. FYI, the...

250th, the Coffee County's 250th celebration that starts at 3 p.m. was originally scheduled for the Courthouse Square, and due to the heat, they have everybody's thought it best to move it indoors, which will be at the church at 117. So at 3 o'clock, that's where we'll be.

Okay. And also, I wanted to mention CTASC.

Yeah, the TCAP facility is going to be the ribbon cutting on it. It will be Friday, July the 10th at 2. This is back-to-back. I mean, I don't know that this is significant. I don't think Coffee County's ever experienced this. Three brand-new structures for Coffee County taxpayers. That would be... Thursday, July 9th for the health department, 10 a.m. Friday, July the 10th, the TCAP facility out on Highway 53 at 2 p.m. And then Saturday, the very next day, at 11 a.m., a ribbon cutting for our new animal control facility. So three consecutive days, three brand new buildings, all three of them ready for their grand opening simultaneously. And it just worked out that way. I think we adjusted the animal control to make it happen right after the other two, but it's neat. I think it's a neat thing.

You got scissors and ribbon? You better be finding them. I think the Chamber of Commerce might help us out. Help you out? Talk to them. Katie Riddle. So August 6th is the next, the 1st. I won't be here. You won't? I won't be here. Okay.

But I'll have the minutes in beforehand.

Hey, that's right before election time.

Technically two days after.

What day is election? The 4th? 6th. Isn't it? What?

Election day is the 6th.

Oh, it's Tuesday, isn't it? It's Tuesday, right? That would be the 4th.

I didn't say a six all day long.

August 4th.

Yeah, August 4th is Tuesday.

Okay, well, we still need to have our meeting anyway. Good with that date?

Yeah.

Okay. So anything else? If not?

Motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn. Second. And a second. Second. Discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion approved. We are done.